Hemani Chawla: The pandemic exposed people to meaningful content, and this transformed showbiz

Actress Hemani Chawla, who is part of the show Dabangii – Mulgi Aayi Re Aayi, says that the way shows are made today is totally different from how they were before. She adds that due to the pandemic, people enjoyed shows on OTT, and this forced makers of other platforms also to upgrade their systems and approaches.

“Times have changed now, and so has the approach towards writing the characters, storyline, the screenplay, everything, in all the mediums. OTT has transformed the entire ball game. The creators and writers had to change their way of working because in the pandemic the audience was exposed to a sea of meaningful content on OTT and they consumed it in the right away,” she says.

She adds, “In Dabangii also, my character is equally strong as compared to our leads Aamir Dalvi and Manav Gohil’s characters. The show, with Kasturi’s track right now, which is going on, is truly female-centric. The writing and performance are equally being served to the audience in the right way.”

Talking about the kind of projects she wants to be part of, she says, “I am a binge watcher, if I like a show or the characters, I binge watch it throughout the night. I want to explore myself in the OTT space as an actor. There are such tremendous performances on the medium and roles that are being written. One of my favourite characters is Vartika, played by Shefali Shah in Delhi Crime, then there is Tara in Made in Heaven, she also had such layers to her character, Sushmita Sen’s character as Aarya. Even when it comes to films, there are roles that are written very well now. So yes, I would want to do something which has more substance in the way it is written, and it challenges me as an actor. It is a good transition that we are in right now.”